1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a pick-up for an electrical connector, and particularly to a removable pick-up for an electrical card connector whereby the card connector can be moved to a predetermined position on a printed circuit board by a vacuum force.
2. The Prior Art
To automatically move an electrical connector to a predetermined position on a printed circuit board (PCB) by a vacuum suction whereby the connector can be soldered to the PCB by SMT (surface mounting technology), the connector needs to be attached with a pick-up having a flat surface for the vacuum suction to be applied thereon. Such a pick-up in accordance with a variety of connectors has many different designs. Taiwan Patent Application No. 83110056 and U.S. Pat. Nos. D371,541, 4,396,245, 5,026,295, 5,055,971, 5,147,209, 5,242,311 and 5,249,977 disclose suck pick-ups.
However, these pick-ups cannot be used with a card connector due to the unique configuration thereof.
For an electrical card connector 4 as shown in FIG. 4 which is a card bus connector, a housing 40 thereof which receives a number of contacts 41 does not have a sufficient flat area for a tool to apply a vacuum force thereto, thus the connector 4 must be manually positioned on a PCB. This not only lengthens the assembly time of the connector to the PCB, but also compromises the accuracy of positioning the connector on the PCB.
To solve this problem, FIG. 5 shows a card connector 5 having a pick-up 51 formed as a flat plate integrally formed on a housing (not shown) thereof between two guiding rails 50 in order to receive a vacuum suction applied by a tool. The provision of the pick-up 51 increases the overall height of the card connector 5, which is disadvantageous in view of the trend of computer technology which requires components to occupy as limited a space as possible.
Hence, a pick-up which can eliminate the above mentioned defects of current art is necessary.